The origins of Dravidian speaking populations of South Asia have been a matter of scientific debate over many decades. In our recent review on the genetic affinities of Indian tribal and caste populations, (1) we concluded that both Indo-European-and Dravidian-speaking populations of India share largely the same pool of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages that has evolved in situ in South Asia since the Out-of-Africa migration of anatomically modern humans (AMH) some 50-70 KYA.
Dr. Clyde Winters in his correspondence (2) to our paper disagrees with this view and argues instead that there are linguistic, archaeological as well as genetic evidences for a relatively recent African origin of Dravidian populations. For a recent discussion on the origin of Dravidian languages, the reader is referred to a monograph by B. Krishnamurti. (3) MtDNA-based genetic arguments provided by Dr. Winters in favor of gene flow from Africa to Dravidian-speaking Indians are, however, entirely erroneous. The author has been, unfortunately, confused by overlooking changes in mtDNA haplogroup (hg) nomenclature. Namely hg, M1 in Kivisild et al. (4) has been later changed to hg M3, in order to avoid parallel nomenclatures. (5) Furthermore, a recent dedicated paper on phylogeography of mtDNA hg M1 (6) as well as an extensive comparative mapping of autosomal genetic markers among many Indian populations relative to global populations elsewhere, including Africans, (7) do not provide any clues for a putative recent gene flow, from Africa, to Dravidian-speaking populations in South Asia.